The past few hundred years. The late 20's and early 30's compared to where we are now and the systemic structures in place to prevent that from happening.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glocksanity

Just tell me a better place to put my money for the next ten years then. Cuz the last ten have been fantastic!

Gold and silver have absolutely no counter party risk. In a world where crooks are running the paper game, I'll take that.

Based on current valuations, I'd suggest real estate and the stock market. Natural gas and associated businesses are very attractive right now.

If there is no contract, there is no counter party risk. There are plenty of other risks and costs associated with PMs though.

Clearly the past 10 years have heavily influenced your opinions. It's interesting to me that you can give so much weight to the last 10 years while totally discounting the previous 200 or so.

I'm not sure if you were around, but the 1970's were very similar to the 2000's. The charts look almost identical. From 1972-1979 the CAGR of Large Cap stocks was 5.1%. Commodities (gold) returned an impressive 22.1%. Surely people were boasting about how much they made in gold and, having been scared out of the stock market, continued to buy more. Unfortunately they would have missed the incredible bull markets of the 80's and 90's, while watching gold prices fall back to where they were before the 70's bubble.

Just tell me a better place to put my money for the next ten years then. Cuz the last ten have been fantastic!

Gold and silver have absolutely no counter party risk. In a world where crooks are running the paper game, I'll take that.

The last 10 years WERE great. I bought three gold eagles in 2002 and 2003 when it was under $320 an ounce. Sold two of them in 2008 for a hair over $1000 when gold spiked at $ 1084 and started going down, then the 2008 crash happend and gold spiked again and I so sold the last ounce of about $1700.

That is how I profited with gold. Pure luck buying low and selling high. However, I would have made money buying Apple Stocks around the same time, because 10 years ago Apple sucked and the stock were cheap and now look at them.

The problem people are having is everyone is screaming "Buy Gold" and the ones who are making money with it are the ones selling it. How do you expect to turn a profit when you are buying ANYTHING high and selling low. Those who bought gold at +$1700 are finding that out the hard way right now.

When the hype dies, eventually the price has to come down to normal market levels. That is with Housing, stocks, oil, and even gold.

Well they always tell you about the economies of scale too. Only when you reach the masters level do you learn the rule of dis-economies of scale. (larger scale of production leads to an Increase in product price)

Economy of scale is about costs, not prices. Those two things are not the same.

EDITED TO ADD: that is not to say that diseconomy of scale doesn't exist. It does, and it can add to per-unit costs when an organization gets large enough. I was trying to be precise. Too many people don't know the difference between prices and costs.

I gathered up my scrap gold and coins when it was a hair over $1700 and sold it all. I'm sitting on the proceeds to add to my silver when it gets down to my buy point.

Anyone crazy enough to still be in stocks or mutuals will deserve what happens. PM's are the safest long-term investment. With the rampant corruption in all the banking houses, physical PM's are a safety net you can count on. I prefer silver because it allows smaller increments of value, vital if we move into a barter economy.

Actually, there is already a sizeable underground barter economy right now, if you know where to look

Ronaldo - oro y plata es el ultimo dinero

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'That which does not kill us, makes us stronger' - Nietzche

Sure you can. Just like $3 gas can be sustained forever. It ain't ever going back to $1.50 again. Gold is priced in dollars, just like gas is. The dollar is going to continue to fall, not magically rise. Been to the grocery store lately?

Here is what Warren Buffet thinks of gold. Can't really argue with one of the richest men in the world.

Quote:

"The problem with commodities is that you are betting on what someone else would pay for them in six months. The commodity itself isn’t going to do anything for you….it is an entirely different game to buy a lump of something and hope that somebody else pays you more for that lump two years from now than it is to buy something that you expect to produce income for you over time."

"Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn’t produce anything."

"I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today’s market prices about $7 trillion dollars – that’s probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States…For $7 trillion dollars…you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils, and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money…And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I’ll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils."

"[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

Here is what Warren Buffet thinks of gold. Can't really argue with one of the richest men in the world.

Warren Buffett's advice is always peculiarly. One day he says silver is a horrible investment, then he buys 120 mil ounces. It's almost like he's trying to shake people out, so he can sweep in on the cheap to get it.

Maybe he's just a little butthurt at PM's in general. He bought that 120 million oz of silver at $5 an oz, it went up to $7 and he thought it was a bad investment so he dumped it. It later shot up to $45 oz as we all know.

While Buffet makes a good point, you have to consider that the size and breadth of his investments give him good leverage with respect to safety versus earnings. Economies of scale are at work here.

As I said before, PM's preserve wealth, they do not increase it. I am approaching 70 yrs so have to rely on what money I already have, and speculation in the markets would be foolish in my situation. If you are a 30-something, have a good career and are well grounded financially, then Buffet's rule may work for you.

Metals are about preservation of capital, not growth.

Ronaldo

__________________
'That which does not kill us, makes us stronger' - Nietzche

Warren Buffett's advice is always peculiarly. One day he says silver is a horrible investment, then he buys 120 mil ounces. It's almost like he's trying to shake people out, so he can sweep in on the cheap to get it.

Maybe he's just a little butthurt at PM's in general. He bought that 120 million oz of silver at $5 an oz, it went up to $7 and he thought it was a bad investment so he dumped it. It later shot up to $45 oz as we all know.

Buffett is out for Buffett. He doesn't play with the same ground rules as the rest of us.

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“If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is WITH representation.”

I gathered up my scrap gold and coins when it was a hair over $1700 and sold it all. I'm sitting on the proceeds to add to my silver when it gets down to my buy point.

Anyone crazy enough to still be in stocks or mutuals will deserve what happens. PM's are the safest long-term investment. With the rampant corruption in all the banking houses, physical PM's are a safety net you can count on. I prefer silver because it allows smaller increments of value, vital if we move into a barter economy.

Actually, there is already a sizeable underground barter economy right now, if you know where to look

Ronaldo - oro y plata es el ultimo dinero

If we move to a barter economy Gold and Silver will have little value. What will have value is clean water, food, gas, ice, T-paper, alcohol, cigarettes guns and ammo. You can not eat, drink, or fuel a generator on gold or silver. Look at any major disaster these are the items people will need to survive.